College of Education and Human Services

PI 34 new teacher licensure initiatives

Description

Identify pilot districts to work with and develop PI-34-related programs that would assist those districts with professional development. Develop a long-term program in collaboration with the Division of Lifelong Learning and Community Engagement to manage PI34 professional development for our own teacher graduates from initial licensure to master teacher status.

Update

As a result of the successful re-accreditation visit from DPI in April 2009, the college has redesigned its student advising system, including putting online a complete advising guide for students, all forms, and explanations and exemplars of the new candidate portfolio system.

DPI approved the state’s first “add-on” licensure program, whereby teachers can earn secondary and tertiary licenses without having to leave their current jobs.

In collaboration with CESAs 3, 5, 6, 7and 9, the college co-sponsored the second  K–12 rural education symposium in the state. Held in February in Wausau and attended by representatives of many districts from around the state, it was considered by organizers and attendees as highly successful. The dean of the college provided the keynote address. The college also is working with the same partners to help to organize the first Wisconsin Rural Schools Association.

In 2007-2008, the college initiated a K–12 Advisory Council as required by DPI and urged by local districts and CESA6. The resulting meetings have been regularly attended by 10 to 12 districts that this year have initiated a research project involving eight districts to investigate high-school-to-college transition issues around the problems associated with math courses and preparation problems during students’ freshman year in college. It is expected that the group will finalize a report in summer 2010.

The college has continued to work with CESA 6 and local schools to develop ongoing programs for professional development for teachers, degree programs tailored to school district needs and enhancement of the regional schools' involvement with RTI issues.

Refinement of student portfolio assessment process

Description

Strengthen a new performance-based, portfolio-driven assessment process to better focus on learner outcomes by refining admission, transition and program completion requirements for students.

Update

The college successfully developed two responses to the need for advanced programs of assessment.The first was completion and operationalization of the COEHS Candidate Assessment Portfolio project, consisting of increasingly reflective and difficult portfolios from admission to exit, built around longitudinal assessment principals and deigned to provide better answers to the chief question of what do our students learn and what can they teach their own students.Given the completion of that project, the college moved to investigate moving to a web or cloud-based portfolio system. The college initiated a series of campus visits to ascertain the progress of other UW and private teacher education programs in developing e-portfolio systems.

Last year, the college developed the COEHS Assessment Plan, the first inclusive program assessment plan for the college, which incorporates collective candidate portfolio data as well as other data sources to help the college manage program decision making.This year, the college has moved to develop a complete database program, including server-based storage, which will support the current system data and be capable of moving to a digital version.

Develop alternative licensure programs for teachers

Description

Respond to the needs of P-16 partners (e.g., local school districts, UW Colleges) in working collaboratively to develop new program options (e.g., compressed, experientially sensitive, integrated preparation) for underserved constituency groups (e.g., career change, nontraditional students).

Update

The college received DPI approval for an innovative pilot program for assisting current teachers in collaboration with their principals and superintendents to acquire additional licenses.The program is an alternative approach to add-on supplemental teaching licenses and moves the college in a radically different way to responding to districts, schools and teachers than traditional programs found elsewhere in the state. The resulting collaboration between the college, the district, school site and the teacher lessens the high number of emergency licenses in the state, increases district staffing flexibility and improves teacher opportunities.The program was marketed in the 2009 K–12 Summer Tour and has seen significant growth in its first year in schools across the state.

Additionally, the programs discussed in the 2008 report are ongoing and in growth mode.The ESTRELLA grant has continued to demonstrate growth in the number of teachers and students it serves, and the ACT! program has finalized an agreement to expand from the Fox Valley area to the Waukesha area near Milwaukee. The Early Childhood / Elementary program based at UW–Sheboygan is expected to grow to include three other UW campuses in 2011, along with the Human Services bachelor’s degree program.

The college is anticipating that, along with the new RtI emphasis, special education professional development programs decoupled from master’s degrees should be available in spring 2011 for use by districts. This will include an increased emphasis on autism and RtI in the classroom. In addition, initial or add-on licensure programs are anticipated for use by local schools.

Change structure to foster collaboration with COLS

Description

Develop an improved governance structure to more fully integrate the COLS voice in decisions about the university-wide preparation of teachers.

Update

The Professional Education Council (PEC) supported the DPI’s continuing accreditation effort and was rewarded with an acclamation that the approach seems to be strong, although the DPI were concerned that the PEC needed to play a larger role in inter-college collaborations.

Expand diversity initiatives with English language learners and Native American students

Description

Expand the impact of Project Adelante and related initiatives to better serve English Language Learner populations and collaborative efforts with College of Menominee Nation to better serve Native American populations.

Update

Project Estrella, a $1.5-million, five-year grant has allowed the college and the Department. of Curriculum and Instruction to continue to serve the ELL population in the Fox Valley region as well as to train a large percentage of teachers in this region. In addition, the college — through the Estrella grant — will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the “Language & Culture Institute” in spring 2011. The institute, operating as a conference, brings speakers form the ESL / Bilingual fields to speak to community groups, faculty, students and local ELL populations. It has been highly successful and brings members of language minority groups to campus to engage with the college.

Expand initiatives with other educational agencies

Update

The college has continued its successful outreach efforts to school districts and educational service agencies (CESA’s) through a combination of collaborative programs with districts and CESAs; specifically:

1. The COEHS K–12 Advisory Council brings K–12 leaders together with college faculty to discuss K–16 educational issues;

2. The COEHS K–12 Summer Tours in which the college dean and special projects director visit between 25 and 30 schools and CESAs throughout northeastern Wisconsin to talk about programs, licensure, articulation issues and status of joint projects;

3. Hosting the website for WIRSA, Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance, as well board representation for the college and continuing support for the annual conference on rural schools’ issues.

4. Assisting CESA administrations in the development of new programs to benefit teachers and schools, which creates opportunities for projects with individual schools ranging from workshops, courses, degree and certificate programs, and assistance in cultural and curricular changes around issues, such as adaptation to ELL demographics, RtI, inclusion, increasing reading and literacy, acquiring STEM teachers and shifts in teacher education.

Click here to read last year's report.